As the year draws to a close and we reflect on the year behind us, it is natural to start peaking around the corner into 2020.
When the Arlington County Board next meets to open the new year Libby Garvey will assume the center chair to lead the body. What will be her priorities on transportation, public safety and housing? Will she seek a property tax rate cut or will she endeavor to spend every penny of revenue generated from surging property tax assessments?
Around this time each year, I remind readers that county officials annually underestimate revenue and overestimate spending. The result is tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent each November in the closeout process with little public input.
Despite county officials making the case earlier this year that the County Board had no choice but to raise our tax rate in the face of “tough budget times,” this year’s closeout process is essentially a repeat of last year.
Much has been made of Christian Dorsey’s post-election day revelations that he not only declared personal bankruptcy, but that he also used campaign funds to pay his wife and that he accepted a $10,000 contribution from Metro’s main union without disclosing its receipt in a timely fashion.
On Saturday, Dorsey offered a few words at the beginning of the meeting about what he called “unwelcome new” surrounding his bankruptcy, saying he was “deeply humbled” and assuring voters that it would”not impinge” on his ability to find solutions to the County’s challenges. Chairman Dorsey inexplicably did not address the campaign payment to his wife or the ethical lapse surrounding the union contribution on Saturday during his remarks.
Not everyone loves baseball, but tonight the Nationals are playing in the franchise’s first ever World Series. Sports often transcends politics, so here’s hoping for a little break from the divisiveness filling up our airwaves and social media feeds.
Activists interested in keeping bike lanes clear made an effort to document violations last week. Some motorists took to the comment section of the story to indicate they would welcome a report on the number of times bikes run red lights, fail to stop at stop signs and otherwise ignore traffic laws.
The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.
Elected officials from Arlington and Alexandria met this past week to discuss how better to work together across jurisdictional lines. The meeting was precipitated in large part by the arrival of Amazon.
Arlington is considering adding additional traffic lights to Route 1 as part of a large scale streetscape modification along the corridor. While the discussion of “improvements” has been ongoing for some time, Amazon’s landing in Crystal City is shining a new light on it.
The lights would create at-grade intersections in two locations. Not only would such a change create a traffic nightmare during the removal of the overpasses, it would create some other long term headaches as well.
The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.
Christian Dorsey made the word “equity” the central theme of his speech to kick off the year as Chairman. On Saturday, the County Board passed an “Equity Resolution.”
Second, the staff could not account for the final 14% in reductions in CO2 emissions. So, while they have set the ambitious goal of zero CO2 emissions by 2050, they do not yet know how they are going to get there.
We should always be wary of a government plan that does not even attempt to quantify its costs, then again it is hard to put a price tag on unknown “future opportunities.”
The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.
For years in this column, I have noted that the county annually underestimates revenue. As a result, the County Board creates a year-end slush fund of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to spend outside of the regular budget process. Arlington’s schools are a big beneficiary of this closeout process.
Thumbs up to Arlington for finally opening its online permitting process. Phase one of moving the permitting process online launches on September 9th with phase two scheduled to follow on in 2020. Another good change coming as part of the process is all in-person filing will be done in one consolidated office location.
Thumbs down to this important line from the homepage: “Estimated review processing times are not changing.” Having recently been through the permitting process in Arlington, I was really hoping the move would help speed up the review process. As it stands the changes might save you a day or two on the front end, but it will have little impact on getting construction projects moving faster. Time is money in the construction businesses, so delays only add to the costs of the housing our county needs.
Yesterday, the Progressive Voice’s Krysta Jones wrote about what has happened in Virginia after the jarring revelations about Governor Northam and Attorney General Herring earlier this year. She tries to answer whether it has been an opportunity for “racial healing and atonement?” It is an important question.
Ms. Jones goes on to discuss things that have been done and things that can be done. Before making a suggested addition to her list, let’s first look at the current state of our politics.
